Who doesn’t love a creepy wedding photo on the cover of a book? In Breaking the Marriage Idol, evangelical professor Kutter Callaway challenges American Christians to develop a new “theological anthropology,” or vision of who we are as people and
Why I Don’t Always Share What I Write
I love David Sherlock’s post on the blog posts he didn’t write in 2017. It lets him set aside some rather unwieldy beasts, yet share what he’s been wrestling with. His never-posts range from education to gendered toys to ‘everything
Why we need more than pair relationships
Given these many ways of doing relationships, I want us to look at all paths: single life, community life, or partnership with another person. Given the Bible’s focus on not making hasty vows, I’d challenge my fellow western Christians not to pressure
What kind of marriage do millennials want?
One path doesn’t work for everyone, as I wrote before. So people are starting to discuss just what an honest commitment means. The New I Do suggests that young couples–and even long-married folks–discuss their values and goals in a relationship, before making or reaffirming
What’s a relationship escalator?
So that path to becoming a monk or nun looks very different from America’s “relationship escalator.” You know, the one that moves smoothly from dating to relationship to engagement to marriage to children, in perfect happiness: Or as Jenna McCarthy puts it
Asking life’s big questions of Google
One year at university, I gave up the internet for Lent. It wasn’t an especially holy move. I was just curious what would happen if I no longer depended on Google for answers to life’s biggest questions: But you wouldn’t believe how complicated
What we lose when writing academic articles
Four years ago (!) I wrote an ethnographic research paper on missionary ethics that was, I like to think, well-written, complex, and faithful to the interviews. But I struggled throughout the research — and I struggle now — with concerns
Gift giving in America vs. Kazakhstan
In a sudden phone call last night, I was asked to speak Kazakh today in some sort of konkurs (competition). Turns out, I’ve just walked away from Kazakhstan’s central bank with a wooden bowl for koumiss (fermented mare’s milk), and a ceremonial
REVISE: Ancient Mosques and Networked Marketing
I realized that I vastly prefer blogs that are mostly pictures and only a few words, over blogs that have deep thoughts. So I’m trying to do the same for you here! Below is a little story… A few weeks
“Everyone moves to Astana, but my son wants to move to Almaty”
The other day, Aiza, an older friend, told me that her son just arrived from Almaty. Oh, how’s your son? I ask. Well, he wants to move to Almaty, she said, clicking her tongue a bit, and shaking her head.